Interstitial cystitis is a chronic debilitating inflammatory disorder of the bladder. The disease is most common in women ranging in age from about thirty to sixty with onset of the condition typically occurring at about forty years of age. It is characterized by a number of urinary difficulties, such as suprapubic pressure and pain, with bladder filling, urinary frequency, nocturia, dysuria, urgency adn irritative voiding associated with morphological and histological changes in the bladder. The condition is characterized as "interstitial cystitis" because it is believed the condition does not affect the surface of the bladder, but instead involves the spaces between the cells, namely the interstices, in the lining of the bladder.
Urethral syndrome is a related painful voiding disorder of unknown etiology affecting women exhibiting many of the conditions set forth above.
As noted in U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,859, issued Sep. 8, 1992, the entire contents of which are herein incorporated by reference, there are a number of compounds proposed to treat these conditions, based on differing theories as to the etiology of interstitial cystitis and urethral syndrome. None of these treatment regimens has proven completely successful to date.
Because of the current dissatisfaction of the currently marketed treatments for interstitial cystitis within the affected population, there exists a need for a more efficacious and safe treatment.